Mikaere Taitoko
Te Kākano ā Te Kāahu - The Journey
There once stood a great whare at the top of the hill overlooking the city, a place of meeting and learning for students and the community alike.
That whare was demolished in mid 2006 to make way for a new student hub and with plans to re-build it by the end of next year, four Wintec staff decided to make sure the history and cultural significance of the original building was not lost.
The team (Mikaere Taitoko, Kimi Matthews, Hera White, Okeora Waitai), headed by Mikaere Taitoko, aim to preserve in writing the history of Te Kākano ā Te Kāahu. They will record for posterity the memories and recollections of those closely associated with the building, as well as providing a written record of the artworks created specifically for the whare. "This is about making sure that the memories of the whare are not lost," said Mikaere. "We want to make sure that even though the whare is gone, it will never be forgotten."
The whare was a physical representation of the bond between Wintec and the head of the Kingitanga, Te Arikinui Dame Te Ātairangikaahu. So much so that she even agreed to part of her name being used in the name of the whare. Due to the recent closing and demolition of the whare and the passing of Te Arikinui in 2006, the group feel it is timely that this research be carried out while those who hold important information are still accessible.
Three of Mikaere's colleagues joining him in this research, Kimi Matthews, Hera White and Okeora Waitai, were all on campus when the whare was built in 1991.
"It has been a really enjoyable project," said Hera. "We have been able to go back and hear people's memories of the whare and what it meant to them." Mikaere describes it as "an exercise where we are pulling all the bits and pieces of people's memories together to make a whole."
Mikaere hopes the research will be a template for a bigger project in the future. For the moment, however, it is to be the foundation for the planning of the new whare, due to be built by the end of 2009. Mikaere says this research is potentially groundbreaking for whare rananga within tertiary education institutions and may encourage other institutions to start similar research into their own whare.